Nipple Piercings Aren’t As Scary As You Think They Are

What you should know before getting one

Don’t tell my mom, but I got my nipple pierced on my 21st birthday. I was sober (surprise), and I guess you could say it was during my “rebellious” stage. I took it out a couple of years ago after a particularly scary NSFW happening that forced me to choose the well-being of my areola over vanity, and I miss it every day. That’s an exaggeration, but I do miss the feeling it gave me—something a little wicked, and a lot subversive.

Nipple piercings have a certain intrigue to them; mostly because you don’t know who has one unless they show you, which means they’re probably showing you a whole lot more. They’re mysterious and definitely sexy. Rihanna—as anyone who has seen the “Wild Thoughts” video… and the “Work” video… and the “Needed Me” video—has one, so clearly they’re desirable. But though many people have doubtlessly considered getting this piercing, it can be an intimidating one to actually get. But don’t be afraid: As Brian Keith Thompson of Body Electric and Cassi Lopez of New York Adorned tell me, anyone can get it done.

“I’ve never met a nipple that I couldn’t pierce,” both tell me. Meaning, every nipple shape—flat, inverted, protruding—can be decorated as its bearer sees fit. The only people that can’t get a nipple piercing, Thompson says, “are the ones who are too chicken to walk up the stairs to make it happen.”

That’s not to say there won’t be some pre-piercing apprehension. There will be! That’s normal! “It’s natural. We all feel it,” Thompson assures. “The people that don’t get nervous, those are the crazy ones.” If the source of that nervousness has to do with how much the piercing is going to hurt, though, it’s misplaced.

I’m not going to say a nipple piercing doesn’t hurt because a needle going through any part of your body is going to send some type of jolt through you, but it’s very short-lived feeling (like, two seconds short). As Lopez notes, there isn’t a lingering pain afterward. “Pain is such a minuscule part of the whole thing… it’s mostly in your mind,” Thompson adds. “I’ve had very few clients who have told me it’s intolerable. The first thing they usually say is, ‘Oh, that’s it?’” What you should be worried about, he says, is the next six to eight months of care... READ MORE